


Oblivious Faerie Prince, Handle with Care

by Judy_The_Dreamer



Series: Faerie prince Steve Rogers and his not so secretive aquatically-inclined friends [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Aquatic shifter AU, Becca might be an old god in secret, Faerie AU, Gen, Modern Fantasy AU, Shifter AU, Steve vs. the city, faerie!Steve, mention of previous near death experience, octopus!Bucky, only Steve doesn't know he's in a battle, prompted by a sweet comment from Mena, stucky friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-09
Updated: 2019-04-09
Packaged: 2020-01-07 12:00:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18410225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Judy_The_Dreamer/pseuds/Judy_The_Dreamer
Summary: Deprived of believers by the modern world, Steve Rogers is perhaps the most lacklustre earth faerie prince you’ll ever meet. Good thing he’s a man with a plan. Unfortunately for Steve, he hasn’t quite figured out that the people he’s charming aren’t exactly human in every sense of the word.In which Bucky discovers that the entire supernatural world is playing a joke on Steve Rogers, and he’s not a fan. But what is one lone octopus to do?





	Oblivious Faerie Prince, Handle with Care

**Author's Note:**

> Menatiera left a lovely comment on the first part of the series which prompted this snippet. So, thank you for your encouragement and greet questions!
> 
> I'm writing vignettes for this series non-chronologically. So far I've got five more planned.
> 
> Written for the Bucky Barnes Bingo 2019 - Square K3: Handle with Care

According to Becca Barnes, authority on every choice bit of shifter gossip, New York was the primary city in the world for interspecies relationships. Bucky believed it. During his nearly twenty-three year long residence in the city, he’d never discovered a corner of the New York that wasn’t equally shared between shifters, faeries and their ignorant human neighbours. Magic simply seeped into every nook and cranny, creating an atmosphere that was as exhilarating as it was difficult to navigate.

Bucky, all ten arms of him, had been born in an Atlantean colony on the ocean-floor mere months before Winnifred and George Barnes had decided to accept an ambassadorship on land. His early childhood had been lonely despite New York’s mixed citizenship. Very few aquatic shifters ever decided to settle on land permanently. Occasionally they kept beach houses in order to procure luxury items, but Bucky tended to stay away from those snobs.

That left him with the shifters of his own family - aforementioned precocious Becca included - or the few crustaceans that called the harbour district their home. In the end, it was only logical that he’d have to branch out to the other supernatural communities in the city if he wanted to actually make some friends. So, Steve Rogers entered his life like the angry little kitten he was (no offense to feline shifters!).

Honestly, it caught the octopus shifter of guard, since he’d grown used to the sickeningly sweet, hippie-like attitude of most other earth faeries. Though Bucky supposed that having a shit-ton of gossiping relatives would stress a guy out, alright. Steve’s sensitivity to his own appearance only made it worse, transforming the little boy from loveable scamp to magical death machine in a blink of an eye. He would have thought it endearing if it wasn’t also terrifying as hell and more than a little exhausting to keep up with.

Anger issues aside, Bucky quickly learned a few other things about his new friend. First, Steve seemed to have very little access to his magical powers, already scraping the bottom of the barrel when he enchanted his own tiny fists to hit just that bit harder. Second, Steve considered himself an outcast from faerie society, even though his mother had a nearly endless stream of relatives frequenting her sitting room. Needless to say, family get-togethers were an unmitigated disaster. And thirdly, Steve never spoke about his heritage, not a single word was uttered about faerie culture, shifter society or even Bucky’s own tentacle situation. It took him another few weeks to figure out why that was exactly.

 

Sarah Rogers had invited him over for tea on a sunny Wednesday afternoon, the weather preferred by most members of the supernatural community, and had started the visit off by giving Steve a long look over the rim of her cup. Initially, Bucky had  thought Steve’d just forgotten to mention to his mother that his new friend was a shifter, but that sense of casual amusement quickly changed to disbelief when Steve introduced him as his first ‘human’ believer.

He’d nearly choked on a biscuit from shock.

Sending Steve off to fetch a glass of water, Sarah had leaned in closer and whispered conspiratorially: “I couldn’t convince him to attend the supernatural Sunday school after a rhinoceros shifter chased him up a tree during break, so I’m sorry if he’s a wee bit oblivious. He’ll figure it out soon enough.”

Well, shame on Sarah Rogers for woefully underestimating her son’s thickheadedness, because Steve never really did. Indeed, the faerie seemed to possess an automatic filter when it came to tuning out the supernatural. He barely grasped the intricacy of faerie politics, much less how to correctly identify the myriad of shifters they encountered in their daily lives.

In short, Steve was oblivious to the fact he was sharing his living space with an octopus and by secret decree, the supernatural community of New York seemed determined to keep it that way.

Through the years Bucky had of course tried to change that fact. He’d incorporated animalistic mannerisms into his behaviour, flaunted his ridiculous dexterity for all of New York to gawk at, and even resorted to shifting completely when he was taking a bath. So far, Steve had managed to evade every single one of his attempts at enlightening him. By the fifteenth year of their friendship, Bucky had all but given up on his mission.

Then the accident happened.

He’d been out basking in the tumultuous waves, munching on some seaweed, when a sharp cry had reached his sensitive ears and he’d turned just in time to see Steve topple from the pier into the icy waters down below.

The octopus had never shifted so fast in his life, adrenaline and fear roaring through his veins as he exchanged his legs for more powerful limbs, ripping through his trousers in the process. His dumb faerie prince was already on his way to a watery grave off Coney Island when he extended a tentacle and pulled him back up. Earth faeries coped notoriously badly with any kind of water and Bucky fully expected his friend to want nothing to do with the sea - and consequently, nothing to do with his aquatic shifter self - after this, but Steve had shrugged the entire thing off like he hadn’t just stared death in the face.

And still, the faerie remained ignorant of the fact that their had been tentacles all over him. If a confrontation with his own mortality couldn’t get Steve to see, Bucky despaired, then nothing would.


End file.
